Dream Catcher
by EatenByReality
Summary: Fang is constantly bullied for who he is, who his family is. It's how his life has always been: an imperfection. A girl with an unknown face haunts his dreams every night. He knows her, but he doesn't. Is the same girl Maximum Ride?
1. Chapter 1

**Um, hello. This is my first story. I was annoyed into putting up a fanfiction, so if you don't like it, keep in mind that I don't either. **

**Disclaimer: James Patterson owns Maximum Ride.**

* * *

I can't sleep.

It has been a repetitive process. Sleep overcomes me until I have the same dream. I am running behind a girl with a blank face, although I feel like I know her. Her hair is a light brown with sun streaks in them. She is tall, although not as tall as me, with a pulsating laugh that echoes throughout my mind. She wears a hospital gown with slits in the back. For what, I don't know. That, or I cannot remember.

I know this girl, although her face is hidden to me. I am following her in a dull forest, the scenery picturesque but seemingly fake. It is unknown to what we're running from, but whatever it is, the ignorance is bliss. I don't want to know, and I don't know if I'll find out.

Every night, the dream skips the ending like a scratched record, but tonight it hasn't. I don't know what time it is, but it seems as if time itself has stopped. The mystery of my dream has been solved tonight.

We are forced to a cliff, right to the end. She looks back at me, I think, but I can't see her face.

And then she jumps. My breath catches in my throat for a moment until she ascends into the sky with wings that are fourteen feet long. Tan, white, and speckled, they are the most gorgeous thing that I have ever seen, reality or not. When she is forty feet above the cliff ledge, she beckons me with one hand. Somehow I understand: she is asking me to jump, too.

And I do. The wind whirls through my coal black hair and I feel like I am falling, until there is a heavy weight on my shoulders - literally.

I do not know how, but somehow I know what to do.

Fifteen foot wings unfurl from my back, the color of a raven's, such a dark black that the tips catching the light are purple.

We're safe.

And that's the end.

I reach my hand just above my face. I can't see it - it's too dark - but I know it's there. It's like the girl. The answer is right in front of my face, but I can't see it. If I tilt it back and forth, there is no difference.

I place my hand over my chest. Is this really the end of the dream?

My hair is a mess when I wake up the next morning. My eyes are dark and sullen, the color of obsidian.

In another world, I would be marked as handsome. The gold flecks in my eyes are like stars in the sky, or so I've been told.

To me, it looks like a drowning fish in a river consumed by tar.

In this world, however, my eyes are too intimidating, my hair too long. My mother tells me I look like an "emo."

It takes me five minutes to comb through the mess of my hair. I toss too much in my sleep for it to be easy with such little hair; it passes just below my jawline.

I have to bend to look into the mirror with my height. I am six foot, although my friend is two inches taller. I am also too tall for the age of sixteen.

"You need to hurry, Nicholas!" my mother calls from her bedroom upstairs. Invonulantarily, I flinch at my given name. It is the name my father calls me by.

"I will," I call back.

I lace up my black converse and walk the two miles to school with a stoic expression, one that has served me well for the past two years of highschool.

There are people who ride the bus to school, as well as people who drive in their own cars. The bus doesn't stop at my house, and my family is too poor, too beaten down for a car.

The second I walk onto the school's property, I am insulted.

"Hey, emo," Travis, a boy in my science class, sneers.

"Got any new scars from daddy?" Penelope, the captian of the cheerleading squad, squeaks with her nasil voice.

"Have you come out yet?" I hear someone ask. I am not sure of who it is.

"Why don't you cut yourself, you emo?" Someone, somewhere, asks me. I don't know who it is. I am too far away for it to be of any importance.

"Goodwill called. They want their shirt ba-"

"_Stop _it." I turn my head at this new voice. It is full of fire, full of hatred and disgust at all of the names being spat in my direction. My eyes flicker to find the owner of such a tone, and then I see her.

She is tall, possibly four inches shorter than me, so many people clear instantly. Her chocolate eyes are glaring poisonous daggers at Isabel Vigale, the owner of the last insult, and her eyebrows are furrowed. I don't know why.

She wears a necklace with the word _soar _on it, a bird flying away on the "s." Her hair has blonde sun streaks that stand out from the brown color the rest of her head is.

Without knowing her name, I somehow know.

She is the girl from my dream.

* * *

**Should I continue this?**

**-Blake**


	2. Chapter 2

**Well hello. Again, pressured into making this. Shoutout to SilenceIsInfinite, whiteangel101, and maandfangforeve. It's their fault that I'm writing. **

**Disclaimer: JP owns Maximum Ride.**

* * *

Time slows down to an infinite stop the second our eyes meet; or so it feels like. The ruthless glare to the world in her eyes replaces itself with her wide, brown eyes staring at me in amazement. She knows who I am. It is like we have been dreaming of the same person, no matter how far apart.

I am not thinking clearly. If I were, I would not have strode over to her in front of the entire school. Even though I act rash - which is another quality I dislike about myself - I am not stupid.

My mind clears into a rational state again when I am two feet away from her. Her eyes are clouded with confusion, bewilderment, and shock. I know that she only has a vague understanding of who I am.

Our gaze breaks and she snatches my wrist, dragging me up the concrete steps of our school. She swerves in and out of students who are no doubt whispering to their friends about the new girl and one of the school's outcasts. Her footsteps are light and purposeful as she pulls me into the building.

I do not have friends. The only person who would be considered as my friend would be another outcast of the school; his label is a blind pyromaniac. I am not supposed to have friends, it would disturb the school's popularity balance.

God forbid that, of course.

We reach the front of the building, her hand clasped around my wrists like handcuffs. For some odd reason, my hand feels like it is burning from her touch, her palm searing into my skin. Strangely enough, I do not pull away.

"Why are you doing this?" I suddenly built up the courage to ask.

She sighs heavily before turning a corner. "I don't know."

I frown, but do not ask anything else. My eyes close, and I simply let her jostle me through the hallways. Although I do not ask another question, doing so anyway would be like provoking a wild dog.

Left, right, forward, left. Turn back, right. Her steps are full of calculations, but I am still wary of how well she knows this school. I have never see her in reality before, despite living in this town for the majority of my life.

We stop abruptly. I open my eyes. It is just another empty classroom, another room out of many in the school.

She turns to me, and I am so close that I can see the patch of freckles on her nose; I can see the patch of gold in her chocolate colored eyes; I can see the faint scar protruding from the side of her lip to her ear. All of these things that I could not see in my dream, I notice now. I don't want to forget them.

"Who are you?" I ask, my voice no louder than a whisper. The words have not slipped from my mouth; I am truly curious.

"Max," she says breathlessly. Her eyes gaze into mine to ask the same question.

"Fang," I say. Max looks at me strangely with a glint of intent in her eyes. She is silently asking me if I am telling the truth.

"Fang?" says Max, raising an eyebrow. "I thought Max was bad."

That is not it. There is more to my name than she is telling me. I do not know anything but her name, but she knows more than that. Much more.

The question is, "How?"

* * *

Before the bell rings, I slide into my seat at the back corner of the room. Almost instantly, students whistle in front of me or throw paper and erasers at my head.

"Did emo boy finally score?" someone asks. There are more whistles.

"I doubt it. Who would love him?"

The bell rings. Everyone quiets down, although athother wad of paper is thrown. This time, my thoughts circle to my dream. Before I know it, I have fallen asleep again.

* * *

**Hi. I guess I really am making this into a story. Don't expect much.**

**-Blake**


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey. Sorry for not updating sooner, but I was having huge writer's block. I hope you guys like this, because this kind of came to me in a dream (*Cue eye roll from my best friend, SilenceIsInfinite*), except I was Fang and my best friend was Max. Weird, huh? **

**Disclaimer: James Patterson owns Maximum Ride - I only own the plot.**

* * *

I don't know how long I had been asleep.

Groggily, I blink a few times, raising my head slowly from the brown desk I had slept on. My index finger touches the side of my chin and I frown; there is a trail of saliva leading onto the desk. I ball the end of my sleeve over my hand and use it as a wipe, dampening it slightly.

My frown deepens as I scan the classroom. There is nobody here, not a trace of a student. The blackboard is erased to perfection, as not a trace of chalk residue remains on the surface; the chairs are all pushed in; the floor is gleaming with cleanliness; the stack of papers that sit at a table in the back of the room are directly placed on one another, not a single corner out of place; the plants on the window sills are trimmed, the vines of the Devil's Ivy tamed. The only sound in the classroom is the ticking of the clock on the left wall and the low hum of the air conditioning.

Abruptly, I stand from my chair and walk into the hallways as if in a trance.

In the narrow hallways, it is the same as the classroom, although not as it was before. The bulletin boards that once held extravagant artwork and inspirational quotes is different. Wolves with carnivorous teeth like shears fill every space in the board. Their furs are matted with blood and dirt, and their yellow eyes seem to be following me every step I take.

I turn a corner to one of the four stairwells and begin to ascend up, my right hand on the metal railing, my thoughts racing. Although my expression is impassive, I am secretly perturbed. The question of the length of my slumber rings in my ears without restraint, begging to be answered. It is not that important of a question, although the time in which reality has become nonexistent could not have been done in a split second.I know that question will not be answered, but my brain is still scratching for answers, for release, like a wild dog chained by a two ton collar.

I reach another bulletin board, one that was previously used for notices. Instead, I feel like I am looking at a mural. The picture inside is of a scientist injecting a deep orange liquid into a child's face. I take a step back in aghast, my eyes trained on the child.

She is not even ten years old, most likely six, with blonde ringlets and ice blue eyes. The hospital gown that she wears is identical to the one in my dream, and I can almost feel the hatred in her gaze to the man with the needle. The feature that freezes me the most is her white wings, almost identical to a dove's.

I blink twice and take another step back as I start to hear screams in my head repeatedly. The screams are like candles, melting to nothing as the fire blazes over their heads. They do not stop. They only continue shrieking with doubtful plea. They feel so _real_, almost tangible, that I feel like the screams belong to me.

A hand snatches my wrist and drags me backwards.

I look up, my daze broken, to see Max. Her eyes are hard, and there is a wound on her cheek that is bleeding. She is dirty and worn down, but her grip on my wrist is tighter than I would think possible for someone in her condition.

I swallow thickly as we descend the stairs to the first floor and into the main hallway. "What's going on?" I ask urgently. She doesn't answer. I stop walking. "Max. What the hell is going on?"

She tightens her grip on my wrist, and I clench my teeth to stop me from crying out. "We need to move," says Max, jerking me forward. I continue to do so, but she has not answered my question yet.

I am about to open my mouth when there is a bang that resembles thunder slightly. Max swears under her breath and we pick up our pace.

"Max, what's hap-"

"I don't know," she interrupts with annoyance, looking briefly at me and swallowing, "but I don't want to know."

We are silent until another bang, this one closer, resounds in the wide hallway. Max and I run towards the front entrance of the school building, our anticipation like a card game; it will not vanish until it wins what it desires after the calculating steps before it.

The banging is constant now, although the entrance is feet away. We can make it, we can get away from whatever is chasing us. The screams will stop when we open the door and run into the deep forest. It will all be over.

The timing could not be any worse. Just as we are about to pull the handle, a sharp pain is on my neck. My eyes widen and reach to touch the spot, right on the nape of my neck. I feel a syringe. Black spots dance over my eyesight, and I have just enough time to see Max give a strangled cry as she is shot as well before I slump onto the ground, one hand on the glass of the entrance.

_So close, _I think as I lose consciousness, _but not close enough._

* * *

**Thank you for the reviews.**

**-Blake**


	4. Chapter 4

**Two PMs, two relapses. Now, these PMs are irrelevant, but the relapses are why I haven't updated in forever. One of them was for cutting (Yes, I cut, but I've been trying to stop lately), and another was just a depressive relapse with my OCD and Bi-polar issues. Yeah.**

**Disclaimer: James Patterson owns Maximum Ride**

* * *

A dream.

It was a dream.

Although I am aware of this, the nape of my neck is burning with a scream of forewarning. My index finger probes the skin with mild curiosity, as well as hesitance, as if the sensation were to vanish in the next touch.

The classroom is empty, but the messy desks and dull blackboard somehow show this is reality.

I blink, steadying myself as an enigma forms in my brain; it is freezing me in an awkward position in which my cheek is pressed against the wood of my desk.

What is my perception of reality?

* * *

There are few times where I can truly say I am happy. I have forgotten the first, and the second is fleeting, a flicker of memory I only recall for brief moments.

The latter revolves around a violin, made from several types of wood and pure patience. It is beautiful, the neck a color of dusted charcoal and the scroll mesmerizing.

I cannot play it yet, for it arrives today in a polystyrene shelled case. My father has bought it for me, worked two shifts every day of the month to earn the money for it.

It is my first gift, at nine years old, and it is also my last from my father, but I am so excited to learn to play it that the thought doesn't occur to me.

That is the only moment of happiness I can conjure from my diluted memory, albeit boring and very distant.

I try to remember the violin as I hear the footsteps coming to my room, loud and heavy with calculation. I know who it is, so I must think of a time of enjoyment to occupy myself.

With a croak of agitation, the door to my room opens with reluctance, a man stepping into the light of my room.

His weight is shifted onto his left leg to relieve a few inches of his height, otherwise he would need to bend his head forward. The ceiling of my room is lower than any other room in the house.

"Nicholas," he says, his voice raspy from disuse. He is tired, tired of me in his house and eating the food he provides.

"Father," I acknowledge, bowing my head by a few centimeters to show my respect. I drop my pencil and close my Geometry textbook to give him my full attention.

Without another word, as per usual, he steps forward and strikes my stomach with a brutal force.

I do not do anything but let him take his anger out on my body, causing bruises and cuts to well on my skin. Another punch to the bicep, and another slap to the face. One more of each of these will not change anything, and begging for release will have the opposite of the desired effect, rather injuring my body more than before.

The only noise is the sound of skin hitting skin while my father beats me. I do not move, and I do not say anything. Protests will only make him aware that what he is doing is wrong; shameful, even.

He is gone in the next second, and my senses are so diluted that it is four seconds after he leaves that I notice there isn't a weight on my body anymore, pinning me to the ground.

Things were not always like this. I can still remember when my father loved my mother, when we would pretend that the towering oaks in the park were entrances to secret worlds once one passed behind it, acquiring an entirely different personality when one did so. He would act English, or like the President, and I would laugh at his antics.

Of course, those times are now past tense. Instead of laughing in a park, my father juggles three jobs and seems to only be home to beat me, never to see my mother. Even she is accustomed to it, and whenever he _is _home, my father reminds me of our hardships. That there is not enough to provide for the three of us.

The bruises on my body are reminders, little details that tell worthless stories. That is all I can think of them.

Today, there is a wound on my cheek, where my father's nails have scraped me. Sluggishly, it drips down my cheek, but I clean it all the same. We have no hydrogen peroxide, no way to clean out any of the wounds. It is dangerous, and that is another satisfaction of hurting me, of ruining me.

The clothes I am wearing are dirty, bits tainted with blood, the rest the grime that covers the floor like a second skin. I sigh as I lift my shirt over my head, a black shirt that has a slash in the shoulder. I will still wear it, but not today.

For an odd reason, I cannot look at my body in the mirror. The protruding ribs are too much to look at, with mangled bruises covering the side of my stomach. My collarbone sticks out awkwardly, and as of now, my hair sticks up in every which way.

Forget being known as handsome, if anything, hideous would be a compliment.

Something catches my eye as I glance at my neck: a single puncture hole, one from a needle. It lies at the nape of my neck, barely noticeable with my fair skin and my long hair. A finger moves to my neck and stops, hovering above the uneven circle of punctured flesh.

I cannot think of this right now. I lower my finger and change.

* * *

**I hope this isn't much to ask, but please be lenient towards the time it takes me to update this story. I've been having a tough time lately, and it's been hard to get a grasp on writing. Sorry.**

**-Blake**


	5. Chapter 5

**Hello. I haven't updated in a while, and it's all entirely my fault - so my apologies. This chapter is what people call the "calming before a storm", so I'll let your imagination wander to what might happen next.**

**Disclaimer: James Patterson owns Maximum Ride.**

* * *

There is a ringing in my ears. I jump, startled, only to find myself in my classroom. The ringing mixes with the noise of students rushing to their next class, busily stuffing papers in their folders in an attempt to stay organized.

I have been falling asleep more often. The thought of what lies during my sleep, where I cannot control myself, disturbs me. It is not that difficult, either; to keep focus, I only need to think of the face of the girl in the mural. Hating, disgusted.

I, too, follow the students out of the classroom and into the narrow hallway. Although it has been a week since I have seen my father, the bruises on my body still ache in discomfort like a rusty wheel.

My fingers wrap around my tattered notebook and binder set - one I have used multiple times in the past two years - more securely as my feet shuffle to my locker. Already they are shoving me, pushing me into other students. Making fun of me for who I am, for who my mother cannot be. For who I am not.

The sigh that escapes my lips is hushed halfway through and replaced with a wince as my ribs shout in protest. I loosen my grip on my books and quicken my pace to the other end of the hallway.

As I open the door to my locker, water balloons fall out of it, too fast for me to move out of the way. They splatter on the ground and water shoots up all of my clothes. My shoes are soaking wet, my hair surprisingly dripping, and my jeans two shades darker from the water.

The explosion of laughter that arises at the throats of students in a thirty foot radius from me is not that unusual. My hands fumble to reach my head, and when they do, I begin to wring out all of the water that got to it.

"Why are you so mean to him?" a familiar voice asks. I already know who it is without turning to look in their direction - Max. I begin to retrieve my spare clothes from the back of my locker, wrapped in an old plastic bag from the grocery store in town, _Renwick's._

With my sunken through books in one hand and my bag in the other, I face the crowd of students.

"Well, emo?" asks Patricia Muratore, captain of the volley ball team. "Why don't you explain to her why you're such trash?"

I turn to walk the other direction, but I am stopped. "No thanks," I mumble.

"Oh? Then why don't I tell her, before she gets infected."

That gets my attention. Max is the one person who does not know about me, who has been the closest thing to a friend I have ever had.

_"Don't."_ The words are a command, paired with a glare that makes Patricia flinch.

For just one second, I peek to look at Max. She is shifting her weight on a different foot every few seconds uncomfortably. Her eyes are confused and she is biting her lower lip.

Sarah McKinsey, a girl in the grade above me, says, "I'll say it, then. We _all _know."

I have had enough. I have seen too many people with a repulsed glint in their eyes after my most known secret is flown out of the mouths of other repulsed people.

"Do what you want, then," I say. I push my way through the crowd of silent students, my sneakers squeaking against the tiled floor of the school with the resemblance of a duck. It is the only sound, resounding throughout the halls in a melancholy echo.

I look straight ahead, not stopping, even as I hear Sarah's words. "He's been raped. He probably has herpes or something, so don't go near him. _Ever._"

* * *

Blocking out harsh words and insults from my mind has been a skill that has been etched into my daily routine for many years. Although it is quite a depressing action, it is becoming increasingly difficult with the amount of slander I have been given.

The solution is music.

A clearing in the woods that lies just behind the school acts as the area for the music. Often, I have left my house in the middle of the night after my father has been gone for far too long for a beating to not be in session, and simply camp out in the clearing. I no longer care about the risks of animals or death, as anything is more preferred than my "home".

In a swift motion, the base of the violin is set at my chin, the bow poised at the higher strings. My eyes flutter shut and release a cool breath.

As the bow strikes the violin in the fast pace of the song, the lost tangents and unfiltered memories escape my brain in the form of a melody. It is a blissful feeling, and I find myself twirling in circles, the wind catching my baggy clothing in wisps. A laugh escapes my mouth, one that only appears while I play music.

As the last note of the song rings throughout the entire clearing, I lower the violin and bow and let out a chuckle. Although the song has ended, my vision is still spinning. I lie down with my violin next to me, my bow still in my hand, staring up at the blue sky, thinking.

_What if I lived here forever? No worries, no expectations, and no fathers. Would it be lonely? But I'm used to being alone..._

_No, it might not even be that bad. Not at all._

I think I smile while falling asleep, but I am not sure. It is hard to feel anything lately.

* * *

**I hoped you liked it. I haven't been feeling well, so I didn't edit it. I tried, though.**

**Expect another update soon.**

**-Blake**


End file.
